School of Architecture Associate Dean for Research, Eliana Abu-Hamdi and Assistant Professor, Iman Fayyad, along with Daniel Cronan, assistant professor of landscape architecture at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF), have recently been awarded a $100,000 grant from the Syracuse University Lender Center for Social Justice for their collaborative research proposal examining the issue of the racial wealth gap in the United States.

As part of several new research initiatives by the Lender Center to accelerate efforts to address the racial wealth gap and help dismantle the root causes of wealth disparity, the funded proposals—supported by the competitively awarded grant—provide support to scholars with new or ongoing research projects that relate to the causes, consequences and solutions on the problem of ever-expanding economic and social inequality.

The architecture team’s research project, “Closing the Racial Wealth Gap through Environmental Justice and Participatory Design,” intends to identify ways that the built environment can have a positive impact on basic life needs that are typically neglected in underprivileged communities, which include communities of color, low-income, disability, the elderly and immigrant populations. Through three phases—data analysis and design research, curricular implementation and impact and transferability—the team hopes to better understand the entrenched systems (policy, municipal, zoning, etc.) that have created and exacerbated racial wealth gaps.

Read full article with photographs here

Eliana Abu-Hamdi joined SAH in 2015. She served as an SAH Annual International Conference speaker in 2018, 2020, and 2021, and as a session chair in 2019 and 2022.  Currently, she is serving on the SAH Board as the Board Liaison to the Affiliate Groups, on the SAH Nominating Committee, and as the co-chair of the SAH Globalizing Architectural History Education Affiliate Group.